From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V16 #690 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, August 23 2008 Volume 16 : Number 690 Today's Subjects: ----------------- interview? ["Benjamin Lukoff" ] Re: Tell Me Morris ["Jeremy Osner" ] Tell Me Morris [hssmrg@bath.ac.uk] Bad Case Of Lack of information ["John B. Jones" ] Re: major disk crash - good news and bad news [grutness@slingshot.co.nz] one more question and I'm done for the week. ["John B. Jones" ] Re: interview? [HwyCDRrev@aol.com] Re: interview? [2fs ] Re: one more question and I'm done for the week. [Tom Clark ] Re: Bad Case Of Lack of information ["(0% rh)" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:01:05 -0700 From: "Benjamin Lukoff" Subject: interview? > From: Sebastian Hagedorn > - --On 20. August 2008 22:33:49 -0500 2fs wrote: > > > I don't recall anyone here ever mentioning this - but has anyone here > ever > > interviewed Robyn in person? > > yes, I did. > > > What sort of impressions did you get, if so? > > He wasn't entirely comfortable about it and he didn't like that I was in > that weird Internet fan thing ... that was in 1996, when it wasn't as > ubiquitous as today. I suppose even he has come around to it to some > degree. > You can find a transcript of the interview here: > > > > > Robyn Hitchcock interview, Hamburg, October 8, 1996 Thanks for the link! I interviewed Robyn ten years later, when I was working at Amazon and he did an "in-store" performance in one of our conference rooms. No transcript, unfortunately: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1LYB7IT97TNP0 (Looks like the WMA link is dead, but the MP3 links work.) What I remember most is getting him powdered Swiss Miss hot cocoa from the kitchen. And him saying something, after the interview/performance was over, about everything returning to vinyl once the EMP happened and all the computers were dead. Or something like that. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:54:47 -0400 From: "Jeremy Osner" Subject: Re: Tell Me Morris Speaking of the Asking Tree: I was surprised to see that many of the bonus trax from "Element of Light" have no entries in this database; e.g. "Neck" I think does not, nor "Upside Down Church Blues" (a song, incidentally, which sounds like it ought to be on "The Basement Tapes" and performed by Dylan and The Band). Where do these songs come from? It might be just me: but I am dissatisfied by the decision to close "Element of Light" with markedly inferior alternate cuts of the great songs "Bass" and "Lady Waters & the Hooded One". It just annoys me. (But they're *bonus tracks*! Like free pie! How can you complain!) J - -- READIN 2.0 http://www.readin.com/blog/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:41:22 +0100 From: hssmrg@bath.ac.uk Subject: Tell Me Morris > Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:17:32 -0400 > From: "Jeremy Osner" > Subject: Re: RH Box Set (yeah yeah I know) > Well if that sort of thing's welcome here... > I had never (or only a couple of times before just now) heard "Tell Me > About Your Drugs". It's nice, I'm picturing that said from any number > of different attitudes. Did not catch all of the lyric but it sounded > like worth listening to over and over again until I could recite it. > J Fairly sure that performance is from the first ever RH show I saw, Glastonbury 1986, where they all swapped instruments for that final song. Andy Metcalf played the drums, RH played bass and Morris Windsor played very energetic rhythm guitar. (Funny, I thought I saw Roger Jackson as well, but maybe I dreamt that). Anyway, according to robynbase, http://www.jh3.com/robyn/base/song.asp?squid=609 the lyrics go: Do you believe in the Holy Grail? Tell me about your drugs Do you know anyone in jail? Tell me about your drugs Do you wake up on somebody's floor? Tell me about your drugs And you just can't take it anymore? Tell me about your drugs Ah, we all get hit by forces that we just don't understand Do you believe in the Holy Ghost? Tell me about your drugs Do you like the things that hurt you most? Tell me about your drugs Do you wish you were somebody else? Tell me about your drugs But you wake up and you're still yourself Talkin' about your drugs Ah, we get messed up by forces that we just don't understand Well, now tell me about your drugs, come on (Bop bop shoo bop, a-wop bop shoo bop) Why don't you tell me about your drugs? I'd love to know more about your drugs Why don't you get intimate about your drugs Why don't you call me up and go on for hours 'n hours 'n hours 'n hours 'n hours 'n hours 'n hours about your drugs Tell me Morris Do you believe in the endless sleep? Tell me about your drugs Do you believe in human sheep? Tell me about your drugs With their curly little whirly tails? Tell me about your drugs So they hang themselves when all else fails And they're thinkin' about their drugs Oh, we gets messed up by forces that we just don't understand - - Mike Godwin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:15:28 -0700 From: "John B. Jones" Subject: Bad Case Of Lack of information Hey fegs - Do any of the live tracks on disc 2 of Bad Case Of History come from official releases? I remember there being both a live Egyptians cassette, and a live Soft Boys cassette that Robyn sold via mail-order in the mid-90's and Im wondering if any of those Egyptians tracks made it onto cd. What got me thinking about it is this: On the disc it says, live tapes compiled by Morris Windsor, and I seem to remember something similar printed on the cassette of the live Egyptians tape (I think I saw a scan of it). Thanks, John ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:00:09 +1200 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: major disk crash - good news and bad news >>Dear all - >> >>I have just suffered a major computer disk crash which, in >>deference to Murphy's law, happened while I was backing everything >>up onto my peripheral hard drive. Because of that not only do I not >>have access to any files that I have written or been sent recently, >>my most recent backups are also fried. As such, my most recent >>backup is now the set of CD-Rs I burned in *April* :(( >> >>If any of you have sent me any mail in the last four months which >>you thinkI might still need or are waiting for a reply from, please >>if possible could you send me a copy? Many thanks, Well, I've had some good news and bad news today - the good news being that the folk at Magnum Mac managed to save all my data. So I'm back in action and have all my files (email, financial docs, art stuff, photos, half-written articles and quizzes, the lot :) The bad news, however, is that the computer itself was unsalvageable (a logic circuit blew, and it was an old type no longer made, or some such stuff), so I'm down to using my old backup computer . The hard disk of the other one's still usable, and the folk at Magnum Mac seem to think it would be easy to turn it into a peripheral drive. 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") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:09:33 -0700 From: "John B. Jones" Subject: one more question and I'm done for the week. The "Wanna Go Backwards" box set had a slip of paper in it for a bonus track from the Yep Roc store, but I didn't find one in this new "Luminous Groove" box. Anyone anyone? Thx, JBJ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:46:38 -0700 From: "Stacked Crooked" Subject: Re: Monkeys' Uncle apologies if i was being a bit too oblique about it; but that's the very point i was intending to concede with my comment about "rolling their eyes and getting back to planning the next war", and then again with my response to jeff's charge of utopianism. but the point is that we're *entitled* to certain rights, whether or not we're able to realise them. and further that these are known/intuited universally. by the same token, it's pretty easy to smell a rat, and... ...the "right" to be an asshole certainly isn't among these, even when it's so "argued". the king would of course say that he was chosen by god to be king, and blah blah. and the sycophant (plato, anyone?) would posit similarly. but notice that those so arguing needs must back the argument up with coercion of one form or another. why? because it's pretty easy to smell a rat. <> quite the opposite, i should think. if it's *not* possible for certain entities to always ensure the protection of all rights, then why should we stake our hopes and dreams on these entitities? unless you meant "*im*possible for any collective entity...", in which case i'd argue that we ought at least to settle on the least-bad alternative -- which the state most definitely ain't. anyway, it's *not* impossible. human societies were able to do so (surely not literally *all* of the time, but the exceptions were infrequent enough to have been exceedingly statistically insignificant) for many tens of thousands of years -- for a coupla *million* years if we add pre-human hominid societies into the mix. now, is it possible that in a *densely populated* industrial or pre-industrial society, the state would in fact be the least-bad alternative? yes, however doubtful, it's at least conceivable -- although the spanish revolution seemed to be getting along just fine without (but then, even had catalonia been permitted to proceed merrily upon its anarchist course, i can't imagine that it would've been an ecologically sustainable society...). but this is an argument *against* the formation of densely populated societies, NOT an argument *for* the legitimacy of the state. no. private property arose with the advent of the agricultural revolution; while states (or proto-states or state-like-entities, if you prefer) in turn arose in order to protect the newfound riches from those left scratching their heads wondering why anybody should want to "enclose" and hoard up what had been freely offered by mother nature for lo these billions of years. you may have to clarify what you mean by "some sort of governmental organization". otherwise, this point doesn't seem to me to advance your argument. "so they say" is the key phrase here. <[...] And it's not always the case that the state uses the concept of eminent domain to benefit the more powerful party. [...]> the issue isn't which of two property owners the state might favour in a civil dispute. the issue is whether land, resources, and means of production shall be communally "owned" and democratically adminstered for general public benefit, or privately owned and hierarchically administered for private gain -- never mind even the issue of "externalising" the costs incurred in the production of "wealth". (and, as i say, beyond even this is the question of whether we shall recognise the rights of non-human communities.) if it be "privately owned", then it can *only* be so by dint of coercion, as it is antithetical to our innate sense of justice. i don't think i quite agree with the statement. but, anyway, it's not what i'm saying. i'm saying what i just said above: this relationship can only be maintained by coercion, as it is antithetical to our innate sense of justice. therefore, the body that acts to maintain this relationship cannot be considered legitimate. if you wanna argue that it's the best we can possibly hope for, then you must be prepared to concede that we will never realise justice. but if there's no property, then there's nothing to fight over. and, thus, there will only be liberty. and that's not just some tie-dye utopian dream. it's the way humans lived for scores upon scores of thousands of years; and it's the way non-humans still live to this day: sharing the earth's riches, sustainably, rather that using them all up in one fell swoop, in the process creating ocean after ocean after ocean of misery. are you arguing that justice can be achieved *even given* the existence of property? if so, i would ask you to briefly explain what such a polity would look like. if not -- if you agree that property must be abolished in order for justice to be achieved -- then are you arguing that the state is the best vehicle to achieve this goal? the latter, of course, is how it was supposed to have worked in russia and china. maybe we can do better than they did. but, still, the goal would be the dissolution of the state. <> first of all, that had nothing to do with an absence of private property. secondly, those rights were *conceded*. why weren't they included in the constitution proper? because the property-owners didn't give a fuck about them. even after they were conceded, on paper, it took decades of bitter struggle to achieve them here. and the state still makes every attempt to restrict them at every turn. and, even having achieved what is probably the most expansive free-speech rights of any state-citizenry in history, we've also got history's highest number of people suffering incarceration. in my parents' lifetime, blacks didn't have the vote. in my grandparents' lifetime, *half the population* didn't have the vote. it's great that we've made gains since then. but they weren't *because* of the state, they were *in spite* of the state. and they're certainly no end in themselves. but to repeat the more important point: your example doesn't say what the state's duties would be in the *absence* of private property. of course, you may not care about that, as you may not agree that only in the absence of private property can there be justice. if this be the case, then i invite you to say why, if it is the case, would property relations need to be maintained through coercion? why don't people willingly consent to their existence? if by "defending", you mean "enforcing", then, yes. <...and therefore, by definition, "the state" is that which defends property rights.> well, that *is* the definition. we can argue whether it's good or bad that it exists. we can argue the degree to which our rights can be realised given the fact of its existence. but that's what it *is*. maybe that's not what you, personally, *want* it to be. but the point is, property relations can only be maintained by force. and so, *some* entity will have to enforce them. we call that entity "the state"; but that's not important. what's important is that we *overcome* the relationship itself. once we've done that, by whatever means, the entity, whatever we have chosen to name it, will (logically) have ceased to exist. and then we can be free. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:16:11 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: Re: interview? i hate when that happens it's rare that meeting any artist increases my appreciation even if it goes really well . . . but when you have a bad experience - it's tough to get over i met the clash in the UK in 1981 took a long time to get over my blog is "Yer Blog" http://fab4yerblog.blogspot.com/ http://robotsarestealingmyluggage.blogspot.com/ In a message dated 8/22/2008 3:38:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jbj@tuthorse.net writes: I'll be honest, the experience soured me on Robyn for a time, probably for a couple of years. **************It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:44:06 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: interview? On 8/22/08, John B. Jones wrote: > > Jeff said: > > >I don't recall anyone here ever mentioning this - but has anyone here ever > > interviewed Robyn in person? What sort of impressions did you get, if so? > > I interviewed Robyn in the fall of 2003. > > It contained one of my worst interviewing moments ever. I believe that > Luxor had just come out, and so I lobbed a softball of a question to Robyn: > "The songs on this album seem pretty personal." > > Robyn shot back, "All my songs are personal." I heard some acid in his > tone. > > *DEAD AIR* > *DEAD AIR* > *MORE DEAD AIR* > > I froze up. > > It all happened so fast, and I was so bummed. I think Robyn could tell that > things didn't go well for me, because he came into the air room after it was > over and asked if he could put me on the guest list for the show that night. > "I already bought my tickets, but thanks anyway" was pretty close to how I > responded. > > I'll be honest, the experience soured me on Robyn for a time, probably for > a couple of years. > This is why (though I'm not blaming you or anything) I'm glad not to be a public figure. I'm sure every one of us has, some day or other having a bad day or whatever, been slightly more snippish to someone than we should have. If it's someone we know, we apologize and move on; if not, we'll probably never see them again. In any event, no big deal. But let a celebrity (even a minor one) snap at someone, however minor a snap it might be, and people carry it away as an impression that so-and-so is an asshole, etc....when in fact, they were probably just having a bad day. And of course, if it's an interview, that snippy moment is immortalized, and everyone can come back to it and point at it and say, see, look at what an asshole this guy is - what a jerk, snapping at that reporter like that. *sigh*... 'Course, if it'd been Phil Spector, he might have pulled a gun on you. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:50:44 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: one more question and I'm done for the week. On Aug 22, 2008, at 4:09 PM, John B. Jones wrote: > The "Wanna Go Backwards" box set had a slip of paper in it for a > bonus track > from the Yep Roc store, but I didn't find one in this new "Luminous > Groove" > box. > All I got from YepRoc was an email saying I could download a digital version of the set from my online "stash". No bonus trax. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:51:35 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: interview? - --On 23. August 2008 01:16:11 -0400 HwyCDRrev@aol.com wrote: > i hate when that happens > it's rare that meeting any artist > increases my appreciation Really? My counter-examples (most of them from a long time ago) include The Feelies (obviously), Yo La Tengo, most of R.E.M., fIREHOSE, The Jazz Butcher, Eleventh Dream Day and probably some others. OK, except for R.E.M. none of those are "famous", but they were all very friendly and open. Still, Robyn being more reticent doesn't make him a worse artist. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:46:45 -0400 From: "(0% rh)" Subject: Re: Bad Case Of Lack of information John B. Jones says: > Hey fegs - > > Do any of the live tracks on disc 2 of Bad Case Of History come from > official releases? I remember there being both a live Egyptians cassette, > and a live Soft Boys cassette that Robyn sold via mail-order in the mid-90's > and Im wondering if any of those Egyptians tracks made it onto cd. > > What got me thinking about it is this: On the disc it says, live tapes > compiled by Morris Windsor, and I seem to remember something similar printed > on the cassette of the live Egyptians tape (I think I saw a scan of it). i'm not sure if this is the information you're looking for (actually it isn't, but it might help), but here's a track listing for "Give It To The Thoth Boys: Live Oddities": << ROBYN HITCHCOCK AND THE EGYPTIANS "Give It To The Thoth Boys: Live Oddities" Compiled by Andy Metcalfe (London '93) Live Sound by Hessu Iso-Ahola Released only on cassette through the Robyn Hitchcock Fan Club. Source: Original Cassette Transfer: JVC TD-V711 -> SoundStream -> wav -> CDWave -> wav -> Flac frontend -> flac * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * Tracks: 01. Egyptian Cream (Tempe '92) 02. My Wife And My Dead Wife (Dallas '92) 03. Clean Steve (Dallas '92) 04. Glass Hotel (Minneapolis '92) 05. When I Was Dead (NY '92) 06. City Of Shame (NY '93) 07. Only The Stones Remain (NY '93) 08. The Live-In Years (LA '92) 09. Globe Of Frogs (San Francisco '92) 10. Somewhere Apart (London '91) 11. Freeze (London '91) 12. A Day In The Life (Dallas '92) * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * >> BTW, it's a kick-ass compliation. it sounds SO good that i've always figured that it was tinkered with after the recording. but maybe the egyptians were just THAT good. i didn't do a compare and contrast of tracks/dates (i'm never too big on details.) but, you know, be my guest if you're so inclined ;) xo lauren - -- "people with opinions just go around bothering one another." -- the buddha ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V16 #690 ********************************