From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #9 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, January 11 2009 Volume 17 : Number 009 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Rockin' like it's 1993 [Tom Clark ] random robyn tidbit - newly discovered? [hb ] reap ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered? [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Stranglers question--0.00% RH [Poem Lover ] re: my Stranglers query [Poem Lover ] Miles' 2008 top albums ["Miles Goosens" ] Painfully Honest Year-End List [Rex ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Tom Clark ] Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List [Christopher Gross ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 14:08:40 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Rockin' like it's 1993 On Jan 10, 2009, at 11:27 AM, Rex wrote: > I'd say you're lucky your playlist didn't > have any Sublime on it! I strategically headed that off by not having any Sublime in my library. I'm kinda smart like that! - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:38:42 -0500 From: hb Subject: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered? My girlfriend is currently reading a novel entitled "Exquisite Corpse" by Poppy Z. Brite (1996) that she recently picked up at a Half-Price Books store. Knowing I am a RH fan, she couldn't help but share this passage when she read it, on page 191: 'Luke switched over to music mode and played Robyn Hitchcock's love ballad "Queen Elvis" from the acoustic album Eye. Looking at the jewelbox, he recalled the lament for a lost lover in one of the other songs. Even talking is out of reach... It captured the white-hot agony of an affair ended in anger, the silent void left by the absence of the person with whom you'd had the most intensely emotional conversations of your life.' Can't recall anyone ever mentioning this before! /hal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:00:44 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: reap Butch Baldassari, bluegrass mandolin genius. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 03:08:43 +0100 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered? - -- hb is rumored to have mumbled on 10. Januar 2009 20:38:42 -0500 regarding random robyn tidbit - newly discovered?: > My girlfriend is currently reading a novel entitled "Exquisite Corpse" > by Poppy Z. Brite (1996) that she recently picked up at a Half-Price > Books store. Knowing I am a RH fan, she couldn't help but share this > passage when she read it, on page 191: > > 'Luke switched over to music mode and played Robyn Hitchcock's love > ballad "Queen Elvis" from the acoustic album Eye. Looking at the > jewelbox, he recalled the lament for a lost lover in one of the other > songs. Even talking is out of reach... It captured the white-hot agony of > an affair ended in anger, the silent void left by the absence of the > person with whom you'd had the most intensely emotional conversations of > your life.' > > Can't recall anyone ever mentioning this before! Neither can I. Seems a nice use of a musical reference as well, at least as far as the quote is concerned (Linctus House, right?), but I'm a bit baffled that "Queen Elvis" is characterised as a "love ballad". WTF? - -- Sebastian Hagedorn Am alten Stellwerk 22, 50733 Kvln, Germany http://www.uni-koeln.de/~a0620/ "Being just contaminates the void" - Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:23:23 -0800 From: Carrie Galbraith Subject: Re: random robyn tidbit - newly discovered? On Jan 10, 2009, at 6:08 PM, Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > -- hb is rumored to have mumbled on 10. > Januar 2009 20:38:42 -0500 regarding random robyn tidbit - newly > discovered?: > >> My girlfriend is currently reading a novel entitled "Exquisite >> Corpse" >> by Poppy Z. Brite (1996) that she recently picked up at a Half-Price >> Books store. Knowing I am a RH fan, she couldn't help but share this >> passage when she read it, on page 191: >> >> 'Luke switched over to music mode and played Robyn Hitchcock's love >> ballad "Queen Elvis" from the acoustic album Eye. Looking at the >> jewelbox, he recalled the lament for a lost lover in one of the other >> songs. Even talking is out of reach... It captured the white-hot >> agony of >> an affair ended in anger, the silent void left by the absence of the >> person with whom you'd had the most intensely emotional >> conversations of >> your life.' >> >> Can't recall anyone ever mentioning this before! > > Neither can I. Seems a nice use of a musical reference as well, at > least as far as the quote is concerned (Linctus House, right?), but > I'm a bit baffled that "Queen Elvis" is characterised as a "love > ballad". WTF? > -- This is new to me as well. Nice paragraph! So Poppy is an RH fan. - - c (I'd also question the the love ballad call.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:15:01 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: re: Re: Rockin' like it's 1993 Rex replied to Tom: >I think that among the Youth of Today, Nirvana is basically "classic rock", >due to circumstances beyond anyone's control (see t-shirts available on the >Venice boardwalk with the faces of Hendrix/Morrison/Cobain). Everyone >knows >Nirvana and Zeppelin; bands that to us went hand in hand with Nirvana have >sunk into much greater obscurity. I'd say you're lucky your playlist >didn't >have any Sublime on it! But, on the not so lucky side, no Meat Puppets. Glad to see the Screaming Trees get a nod there. I always thought they were the best thing out of Seattle (aside from the Young Fresh Fellows) since Hendrix. Marc I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex. Jack Handey ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 09:07:52 -0800 (PST) From: Poem Lover Subject: Stranglers question--0.00% RH I'm trying to find a copy of the song "Men in Black" by the Stranglers and am having a hard time finding just the song as an mp3. No youtube video, no Stranglers web site.....nothing on amazon. I'm having itunes issues so the itunes people told me not to try to download anything from the store for two weeks so I haven't even looked on there. Any thoughts....??? Thanks, musical dudes! ;p Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:37:42 -0800 (PST) From: Poem Lover Subject: re: my Stranglers query Found it y'all. Marcy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:50:53 -0600 From: "Miles Goosens" Subject: Miles' 2008 top albums I heard so little music this year. There was a lot going on in my life, much of which precluded time and and money for music. If I get some more of both of those latter, precious commodities, this list could be completely different in two months, much less a year. I was going to annotate this, but if I wait for that, it may never happen. Maybe I'll do a revised and annotated version later. But right this minute, here 'tis: 1) Hank III, Damn Right Rebel Proud 2) Goldfrapp, Seventh Tree 3) British Sea Power, Do You Like Rock Music? 4) Local H, 12 Angry Months 5) Radiohead, In Rainbows 6) Lindsey Buckingham, Gift of Screws 7) School of Seven Bells, Alpinisms 8) Todd Steed & the Suns of Phere, Eskimo Hair 9) REM, Accelerate 10) Scott Miller, Appalachian Refugee (the ex-V-Roy Scott Miller, that is) 11) Wire, Object 47 12) The Features, Some Kind of Salvation 13) The Bye Bye Blackbirds, Houses and Homes 14) New Radiant Storm King, Drinking in the Moonlight 15) AC/DC, Black Ice 16) The Dandy Warhols, Earth to the Dandy Warhols 17) Beck, Modern Guilt hate hate hate: Vampire Weekend. It has nothing to do with hype. I just really do not like anything about them. shockingly does NOT suck one little bit: From the Jam didn't hear: The Fall, Of Montreal, James, Byrne/Eno, Steve Wynn, You Am I, Ladytron, Magnetic Fields, Tricky, Raveonettes, T-Bone Burnett, Sigur Ros, Sloan, Don Dixon, Chris Difford, Matthew Sweet, Mudcrutch, Okkervil River, the Ting Tings, Portishead, Lucinda Williams, Ray Davies, Billy Bragg, Destroyer, Raconteurs, Weezer, many many more later, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:27:21 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Painfully Honest Year-End List I listened to even *less* new music than Miles, as shall become apparent. I also wrote this list a long time ago but didn't post it... I've gotten into a weird habit of writing longish pieces and not doing anything with it because I don't like them, or me as revealed by them, or something. But here's my best assessment of the Pop and Rock World as I experienced it in 2008. Top 10 2008 Releases: 1. Imperial Wax Solvent, The Fall 2. The Evangelist, Robert Forster 3. Accelerate, R.E.M. 4. Well, to be honest, those are the only three 2008 albums I'm sure I listened to all the way through, unless the second Go! Team album came out this year. I did acquire, but have not yet listened to, records by Wire, Lucinda Williams, Bloc Party and probably a few others, but let's be real, it doesn't even total up to ten. I haven't even gotten ahold of the Byrne/Eno record yet. My net gain of CD's in 2008 is probably pretty close to... well, -2000 if not farther into negative territory, what with having sold back all my CD's and all. 5. I guess, by default, something by Miley Cyrus, Tegan and Sara, the Jonas Brothers, or the "Twilight" soundtrack, as heard in the background of daily life. Best Live Show: Wire at the Echoplex Most Insufferable Live Show: Modest Mouse (opening for R.E.M.) Top 10 Fall Albums (Studio Only): 1. Bend Sinister 2. Hex Enduction Hour 3. The Real New Fall LP Formerly Country on the Click 4. The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall 5. The Unutterable 6. This Nation's Saving Grace 7. The Frenz Experiment 8. Dragnet 9. Perverted by Language 10. Shift-Work Top 10 Fall Albums (Live, Compilations, and Other): 1. The Complete Peel Sessions 2. Early Singles 3. Fall in a Hole 4. Palace of Swords Reversed 5. A World Bewitched: Best of 1990-2000 6. Totally Wired: The Rough Trade Anthology 7. The Legendary Chaos Tape (Live 1980) 8. Listening In: Lost Singles Tracks 1990-1992 9. The Twenty-Seven Points 10. Seminal Live Bottom 10 Fall Albums (Studio): 1. Are You Are Missing Winner 2. Levitate 3. Code: Selfish* 4. The Marshall Suite* 5. Imperial Wax Solvent* 6. Light User Syndrome* 7. Fall Heads Roll** 8. Reformation Post-TLC** 9. Cerebal Caustic ** 10. Middle Class Revolt** * = Consists of more than 50% redeemable material ** = Actually really damned good Bottom 10 Fall Albums (Live, Compilations and Other): Even God can only speculate. Top Ten Trends Which Must Be Stopped: 1. "Remixing" real vintage recordings in trendy ephemeral styles... I heard some dreadful desecrations of Johnny Cash's Sun stuff earlier this year, and it just keeps coming (Josephine Baker, Nat King Cole and so forth). I blame Starbuck's, because it seems like the kind of thing they'd be behind. It's not the idea of this that I oppose... just the seemingly invariably awful execution. 2. Nineties nostalgia hard-rock/heartland bands. Is the cow-voice back, or did it never go away? 3. AutoTune on overdrive. 4. The Fall not touring in the US. 5. My Bloody Valentine tickets being way too fucking expensive. 6. Wal-Mart propelling mediocre records by acts that weren't so great to begin with to the top of the charts. 7. Hot Topic. Yeah, I'm really late on this one, but my stepdaughter finally got old enough to want something from this store for Hanukkah, so I went into one, and... G-d. Damn. Look, I have a major soft spot for the '80's and all, but even I have to admit that they were pretty lame on a lot of levels. And all of those levels have been distilled in this hell-hole, and spiked with a peculiarly 21st Century ignorant smugness that... well, never mind. I guess I now know how all the baby-boomers felt when kids of my generation started wearing tie-dye. And I'm sorry. 8. Album-recreation concerts. This was a neat idea, but we can stop. 9. Serious reviews of new albums by non-artists. This has been going on for a long time, cycling from earnest to ironic at an ever-increasing rate, but now that change has come to America, I believe it is time for people to just step back for a moment and look at the situation as it stands. It should become clear very quickly that there really aren't any truly valid reasons to assess the progress of Britney's artistic development, or find profundity in anything that emanates from American Idol. It's not snobbery, it's just... come on, people. 10. Hideous guitars. This one's a little hard to explain, but for the past few years every time I've gone to a music store, the vast majority of the instruments in stock have been astonishingly lame looking, and I've been perplexed about who wants these things and why. This year I finally, slowly unravelled the riddle: such instruments are played by bands too popular for me to have ever heard of, or at least seen any images of (see Trend #2). I extrapolate from that that these instruments also don't sound too hot... at least in terms of making any noises I'd want to hear, although I don't imagine that a clean tone without any digital processing ever makes it from the pickups to a record or arena sound system, so there's that. 11 (Bonus): Covers of "Hallelujah". Come on, this was supposed to be seen to years ago. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:01:56 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List On Jan 11, 2009, at 1:27 PM, Rex wrote: > 7. Hot Topic. Yeah, I'm really late on this one, but my stepdaughter > finally got old enough to want something from this store for > Hanukkah, so I > went into one, and... G-d. Damn. http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/210827 - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:58:13 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Painfully Honest Year-End List >> 7. Hot Topic. Yeah, I'm really late on this one, but my stepdaughter >> finally got old enough to want something from this store for Hanukkah, so I >> went into one, and... G-d. Damn. > > http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/210827 Excellent. I especially like the weary sense of duty in goth kids' voices. If anyone finds or makes an mp3 of the song, please email me! - --Chris "probably shouldn't admit I bought my Joy Division t-shirt in a Hot Topic" the Christer ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #9 ******************************