From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V17 #39 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, February 9 2009 Volume 17 : Number 039 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash [Great Quail ] Re: I don't mind [Jeremy Osner ] Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash [Rex ] Re: Kinks [kevin studyvin ] Re: Robyn gives in and gets an iPod [David Stovall ] Re: The Who [kevin studyvin ] Re: FSM works In strange Ways [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: Robyn gives in and gets an iPod [Miles Goosens ] Re: Kinks [Jason Brown ] Re: Kinks [Rex ] Re: Satan works In strange Ways [Miles Goosens ] Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash [2fs ] Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash [Great Quail ] In defense of Rick Rubin [Great Quail ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:12:58 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash Rex writes, > Quail has said that he believes as > much about me, and I have to confess that this is exactly how I have viewed > him for many years, dating back to some years-ago silliness about how he saw > the light about country music via Rick Rubin-- erm, that is to say, Johnny > Cash-- and borne out by every genre-fixated, > self-obsessively tokenistic-messianic best-of list since. What? You may actually have me mistaken with someone else. I was *raised* on country music. I have a collection of Johnny Cash on vinyl, mostly stolen from my grandmother when I was eight years old. My first 45" single was "Take This Job and Shove It," and the first LP I bought with allowance money was Johnny Cash's "Silver." Ask anyone who knows me -- I have been signing the praises of Johnny Cash -- as well as Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, et al, as long as I can remember. I do, however, love the Rubin-produced Cash albums, and have praised them here many times. But I also love Slayer and Public Enemy, too. I think Rubin's an amazing producer. > and borne out by every genre-fixated, > self-obsessively tokenistic-messianic best-of list since. I have...no idea what you mean. Really. Self-obsessed, certainly. But... "Genre-fixated?" "Tokenistic-messianic?" What does that *mean,* Rex? > Quail in turn seems to believe I am some quintessential geek-cred-grubbing > faux-iconoclast who values the musically obscure just for its obscurity Oh, heavens no. I think that about Doug Mayo Wells. - --Quail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:20:50 +1300 From: James Dignan Subject: Re: Kansas >On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 4:21 PM, James Dignan wrote: >> >> As I'm sure I've opined before noww, steer clear of any band named after a >> US state or city - they all tend to be bland MOR pap. > >Exception: Idaho (moody, slowish, alt-tuning guitar stuff) > >> Bands named after English places tend to be strange, edgy indie bands. > >If U.K. counts, exception: first incarnation, jazzy prog (courtesy >Bruford and Holdsworth), later versions, less jazzy, more song-y, even >approaching (shudder) Asia territory (blame Wetton) although never so >dire. > >> Bands named after places in Europe are usually either heavy or industrial. >> >> Bands named after continents try to be sincere but end up sounding like >> parodies of the style they are trying to do. > >Hmmm... There's Europe (crap rock - they did "Final Countdown," no?), >Asia (crap rock), uh...do we count America as continent or country? >Anyway: lite-crap rock. Are there bands called Africa or Australia or >Antarctica? Not as far as I know. There is/was a band called Gondwanaland, though - - a bit like Penguin C afe Orchestra, but with didgeridus instead of violins. Not bad if you're into that sort of thing. 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: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 18:37:23 -0500 From: Jeremy Osner Subject: Re: I don't mind Here is a video of the boys singing "Rain". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTLJMSbEnn0 J If we do not say all words, however absurd, we will never say the essential words. -- Josi Saramago http://www.readin.com/blog/ On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:21 PM, James Dignan wrote: >> >>> "Rain" is a title I do not recognize. I asked Ellen about it and she >> >>> said, "When the rain, falls down on our heads/ We might as well be >> >>> --" >> >>> then pointed at me and I said dead. I kind of recognized the melody. >> >>> She's not sure what album it's from but thinks it is early. >> >> >> >> >> >> Time to go buy some albums. >> > >> > Nah - I'd wait: as soon as the Beatles, their heirs, and their legal >> > squad come to agreement, the remastered catalog is likely to be >> > released (on iTunes, too) - what you can buy now, mostly, is >> > late-80s-quality... (They're still dickering over the "Apple" thing, I >> > read somewhere recently...) >> >> That lawsuit was resolved a couple of years ago, so it's just a matter >> of time. >> >> "Rain" falls into the same category as "Waterloo Sunset" for me: Old >> songs I wasn't familiar with until Robyn started covering them. > > Back when I first fell in love with the Beatles music (not an exaggeration - > it hadf exactly the same laughing, crying, unable to concentrate or cope > with or without it feeling as falling in love), I went out and got all of > their original run albums, plus the red and blue compilations. I foolishly > thought at the time that I'd got all the available Beatles music (this was > before I even knew what a bootleg was). > > A couple of years later, I was at some kind of event - I can't even remember > what - some kind of theatrical show. Through the speakers came the the > unmistakeable sound of John singling a song I'd never previously heard - > Rain. I was literally transfixed. I couldn't move and even at the time could > not have told you where I was, let alone what was going on around me. I > think I wore a big grin for a week afterwards. The song was and remains a > hidden treasure in the Beatles collection - an absolute fucking gem - and I > would have no hesitation in listing it high up in a list of my favourite > songs of all time. > > James > > PS - it's "if the rain comes, they run and hide their heads, they might as > well be dead" > -- > 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: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 15:49:57 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:12 PM, Great Quail wrote: > Rex writes, > What? You may actually have me mistaken with someone else. I was *raised* > on > country music. I must have done. Like you did with my supposed hip-hop aversion, and probably for the same reason: it fits with my totally imagined idea of your personality. I am sorry about that, and stand corrected. I do, however, love the Rubin-produced Cash albums, and have praised them > here many times. But I also love Slayer and Public Enemy, too. I think > Rubin's an amazing producer. For my money, Rubin was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to spearhead the early hip-hop stuff, and his subsequent career suggests a tone-deaf opportunist. Most of the performances on those Cash records are great, but I think it's down to it usually being just JC and his guitar... I give Rubin credit for insisting upon that, but some of his song choices clunk hard upon my ears. Rubin's metal credentials don't impress me much; PE's really down to Bomb Squad. I have...no idea what you mean. Really. Self-obsessed, certainly. But... > "Genre-fixated?" "Tokenistic-messianic?" What does that *mean,* Rex? Erm... well, "genre-fixated" means "fixated upon genre", in your case without any particular reason other than self-identification as some kind of authority (see "self-obsessed"). "Tokenistic-messianic" means that you champion music (etc.) not so much for its own virtues as to posit what a well-rounded, open-minded, authoritative and otherwise somehow virtuous analyst of art you are (that'd be the tokenistic part), and that you do so in overblown, florid, evangelistic terms, "Brother Quail". Yeah, I'm aware that it's meant to read as a self-deprecating joke, but the joke wouldn't be there to be made unless it had some underpinnings of truth... just like the self-effacing comments anyone, not least of all myself, might make. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 15:54:33 -0800 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Two good things about the Grammys Not so surprising that the heads behind an award named after the *gramophone* (which I have now typed twice as "grampaphone") are less than violently a courant, know what I mean. What is that, 19th century tech? On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 1:58 PM, 2fs wrote: > On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > Jeremy Osner wrote: > >> I saw in the paper this morning that "Raising Sand" was the best > >> album of the year, and it made me think the judges have pretty good > >> taste. (Somehow my memory skipped a year; I thought that had come > >> out in 2007. Either way it's a fine record.) > > > > It did; it's just that the Grammy year is something like October to > September, rather than a proper calender year. > > It takes the oldsters that run the Grammys that long to remember to > change the calendar. > > -- > ...Jeff Norman > > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:58:46 -0800 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Satan works In strange Ways maybe in *your* neck of the u.s. woods. up here, the FM gave us pretty much all of the *Come Dancing* tracks. and, of course, "Do It Again" and "Living On A Thin Line" were MTV hits. huhn, i didn't remember the latter having been included on *Come Dancing*. but according to wikipedia, it *was* included. back in those days, i guess that "Destroyer" was probably my third-favourite song, after "The Zoo" and "Kashmir". if that were true, then you wouldn't call it a "box *set*": you'd just call it a "box". luckily, it's *not* true; so we're free to call it what it is: a boxed set. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:02:26 -0800 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: Kinks > ISTR reading somewhere that the Kinks got into serious trouble with the US > music industry and were basically shunned by most radio stations for much of > the 60s as a result (IIRC the song "Get back in line" was an oblique > reference to this). So the US never got Days, Waterloo Sunset, Dead End > Street, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, etc. > > James As a youth in South California I clearly remember a bunch of Kinks singles coming out of LA radio, of which Dedicated Follower Of Fashion was one. And Sunny Afternoon, Who'll Be the Next In Line...lots of wonderful tunes. And I have an indestructible memory of tooling across Lake Washington in the middle of the night c. 1969 with Victoria blasting out of the radio. So we weren't entirely deprived. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:06:57 -0500 From: David Stovall Subject: Re: Robyn gives in and gets an iPod Skimmed a couple digests during work today, just now having time to reply back, if only with a bunch of "yeah"s and "me too"s,... >> ...On the other hand, I'm also on-goingly jealous of Jeremy about >> (potentially) all the cool, excellent stuff he's yet to experience from back >> then! (may I heartily recommend "John Lennon Plastic Ono Band," John's first >> "real" solo album? -- if you are not familiar with it -- its minimal, >> emotional songcraft is still breathtaking, nearly 40 yrs on...) > > Yeah, that'll hit you like a brick. Fuck yeah. > > Being 5 days older than Lucinda and a month and a half oder than Robyn, that > made me 13 when "Rain" came out.B "Rain" had one of the first, if not the > first backwards recorded guitar licks, right? Or was that "I'm Only Sleeping" you're thinking of? Re: Rain: >Add some of Ringo's best moments > on the drums and a great vocal and lyrics by John and you have one of my five > favorite songs by the Beatles. I like "Paperback" Writer" almost as much, so > it was some single and b-side! I fully expect, when gene-sequencing becomes cheap enough that I'll finally have mine done just for shits and grins, to hear, as the sequencing-scientist shows me through the results on his computer screen, "There's your hair-color sequence, there's the one for that funny-shaped ring-finger-pads and, there, the angled fingernails on your middle fingers, there's the one for spelling, and, oh, here's the lyrics and music for "And Your Bird Can Sing." Fancy that. Oh, and is this "Rain" right after it? You could say I've been a Beatles fan for a while, though I hardly ever play their discs lately, most of them being in the 'I can just run through 'em in my mind whenever I need that fix' category. But "Rain" is right up there in the top handful - it is flawless. "The Inner Light" (Gawd, George, you were so far ahead of everybody), "Dear Prudence," "It's All Too Much," "Only a Northern Song," "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Sexy Sadie," "I'm So Tired," "Taxman," "She Said She Said," (hell, half of Revolver and the white album, when it comes down to it), "Something," and doubtless more. A lot of my favorites of theirs are left-field picks, definitely, but just playing through Past Masters 2, I'm struck by "We Can Work it Out" - underrated by me for a long time. "Rain" just played, and one of my cats is doing his equivalent of baying - no idea why, I'm not even playing the CD that loud. Oh, yeah, Goodnight Oslo and its Exclusive Bonus Disc arrived in my mailbox while I wa away over the weekend. I'll be listening tomorrow. da9ve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:10:58 -0800 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: The Who On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Michael Sweeney wrote: > Great Quail wrotes: >It just blows my mind, the way that Moon plays. I am > never sure whether I am hearing a freakishly paradoxical > >combination of raw chaos and surgical precision, or whether every note is > guided by some unique navigation > >system fueled by equal measures genius and ignorance. Just...amazing. > > > ...Amen to all that (and, very well said!) -- and, as I think I may have > said > before (but it always comes to mind for me w/Moonie), I always > fascinatingly > just LUVVED watching him play as closely as I could, usually being > stunningly > unable to even follow the movements and strikings (most notably, his > off-direction, almost casual-seeming hits) with the sound he produced. > There > are -- of course -- many different styles of drumming and so many excellent > rock drummers, but...gawd, I cannot imagine ANYONE EVER being like Moon... > > ...Plus -- the poor dude was just so misguidedly cute (non-drunk > personality-wise) -- I always saw Pete as trying to be so lovingly > protective > of his lil' buddy (as much as that was possible, anyway). Still can't > believe > he was barely 32 when he went... > > > Michael "I know, I know -- Bruford (;->...just saving Kevin some typing > time)" > Sweeney Regardless of my love for BB's playing I don't believe I've ever been guilty of dissing the Moon. I was totally broken up when he left the building. They're certainly different - one cool, calm and professional and one a raving freak, but equally worth their weight in plutonium. They delineate the ends of a spectrum, and there's plenty of room in the cosmos for each. np Cowboy Junkies : Trinity Session ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:17:39 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: FSM works In strange Ways Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > is that a large package of CDs looks like a box in in its bulk...not > that it happens to actually have been put in a box> > > if that were true, then you wouldn't call it a "box *set*": you'd just > call it a "box". luckily, it's *not* true; so we're free to call it > what it is: a boxed set. Well, they were original sets in boxes. But with CDs and the conversion to the book format that seems to most often is use now, boxset is more appropriate at this point. "I love how (coffee) makes me feel. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain!" -- Kenneth Parcell - --- On Mon, 2/9/09, ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 18:32:40 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Robyn gives in and gets an iPod On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 4:53 PM, wrote: > < > * You Really Got Me > * All Day And All of the Night > * a minor smattering of Sunny Afternoon > * Lola > * Come Dancing>> > > This probably just means I didn't grow up in the sixties, > but the only Kinks song I ever loved was Destroyer. > Come Dancing was played to death and > Lola was that song they played on the > radio station for teenagers when I was 9. > After The Who, who I also cannot tolerate. Ummm... while I was born in 1967, I also didn't "grow up in the sixties" in any meaningful way, and I adore the Kinks. If those are the only songs you know, you're really, truly missing out. Their run from FACE TO FACE (1966) through MUSWELL HILLBILLIES (1971) trumps... well, just about anything. And the only song the general public knows from it is "Lola," which I like a lot, particularly in the context of the album from whence it hails, but still, they're a lot more than that. I really can't imagine someone loving Robyn Hitchcock enough to be on this here list and not liking the Kinks to some degree. Smart, poignant, catchy, clever, subtle, groundbreaking stuff. I love them more than the Beatles or Stones, which isn't a knock on either of those two bands. But the Kinks mean more to me. later, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 18:36:18 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Kinks On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 6:02 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > As a youth in South California I clearly remember a bunch of Kinks singles > coming out of LA radio, of which Dedicated Follower Of Fashion was one. And > Sunny Afternoon, Who'll Be the Next In Line...lots of wonderful tunes. And > I have an indestructible memory of tooling across Lake Washington in the > middle of the night c. 1969 with Victoria blasting out of the radio. So we > weren't entirely deprived. That's by far the exception, not the rule, so you should count yourself lucky. It's like folks who grew up in the '80s in college towns or within range of stations like KROQ or WXRT who think that the Ramones and Elvis Costello and R.E.M. (pre-DOCUMENT) were on the radio all the time. For them, sure; for 99% of the surface area of the US... nope. later, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:46:08 -0800 From: Jason Brown Subject: Re: Kinks > ISTR reading somewhere that the Kinks got into serious trouble with the US > music industry and were basically shunned by most radio stations for much of > the 60s as a result (IIRC the song "Get back in line" was an oblique > reference to this). So the US never got Days, Waterloo Sunset, Dead End > Street, Dedicated Follower of Fashion, etc. I think it was about being banned from radio rather than banned from touring. This of course did hurt their following in the 60's but i'm pretty sure they got plenty of air play. But from Lola onward the US Kinks experience matches most of the worlds. - -- "Would you rather have your blood go to mindcrime or genocide?" - Trevor Heins ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 16:50:30 -0800 From: Rex Subject: Re: Kinks On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Miles Goosens wrote: > > > That's by far the exception, not the rule, so you should count > yourself lucky. It's like folks who grew up in the '80s in college > towns or within range of stations like KROQ or WXRT who think that the > Ramones and Elvis Costello and R.E.M. (pre-DOCUMENT) were on the radio > all the time. I've been told that KROQ played US college-rock acts (up to and including MOB and Husker Du) in the '80's, but by the time I showed up in 1989, it was practically all UK bands all the time, so that era is a little hard to imagine. That probably has something to do with the fact that they'd already signed over their flashback/retro caretaking gig to Richard Blade, who was highly anglocentric in such things. The best era of KROQ I ever experienced was in the mid-'90's, when the post-Nirvana thing had run its course and they sorta didn't know what to play, so you'd hear Portishead and Superdrag and stuff like that. There were some really great and almost totally forgotten one-hit wonders during that time. Lots of crap, to, but it was at least unpredictable and eclectic. - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:00:44 -0600 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Satan works In strange Ways On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > > * You Really Got Me > * All Day And All of the Night > * a minor smattering of Sunny Afternoon > * Lola > * Come Dancing> > > maybe in *your* neck of the u.s. woods. up here, the FM gave us pretty > much all of the *Come Dancing* tracks. and, of course, "Do It Again" and > "Living On A Thin Line" were MTV hits. huhn, i didn't remember the latter > having been included on *Come Dancing*. but according to wikipedia, it > *was* included. I'm willing to bet that my experience of the radio Kinks is pretty much the rule. I mean, ask ten random non-music-obsessed folk to name some Kinks songs, and they're not gonna say "Do It Again," "Living on a Thin Line," or even "Destroyer," "Misfits," or "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman." Someone might remember "Don't Forget To Dance," which did mild radio/MTV play in the wake of "Come Dancing"'s success. Heck, at this point, the Van Halen cover of "You Really Got Me" is probably the most familiar one to anyone under 35. Me, I got ONE FOR THE ROAD and LOW BUDGET in 1980, which was a big, big year for my musical development. Thanks to the Clash, Springsteen, and puberty, I made the leap from liking any darn thing on the radio to being, well, basically the me I am today. At the point I got those two albums, I'd understood that "You Really Got Me" changed the playing field, and I knew it, "All Day and All of the Night," and "Lola" from the radio. And then in '82 I got KRONIKLES and that whole year became a wonderful treasure hunt for the mostly-out-of-print-in-the-US Kinks catalog. It was like getting a whole new Kinks album every week or two! Pure bliss, even when that album was SOAP OPERA or EVERYBODY'S IN SHOWBIZ. (Well the former had the supremely great "Ducks on the Wall," and on the latter, I like "Celluloid Heroes" and the live half of it, so no Kinks album has been a total loss. Come to think of it, THINK VISUAL is the worst Kinks album, but I'm talking Kinks-katalog-c. 1982.) Top 5 Kinks/Davies products since the peak, not counting live/comps: * GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT * "Did Ya?" EP * RETURN TO WATERLOO EP (I like the film too) * WORD OF MOUTH * LOW BUDGET (good songs, tepid performances, mostly rectified on ONE FOR THE ROAD) and PRESERVATION is pretty underrated too, Miles - -- now with blogspot retsin! http://readingpronunciation.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:02:47 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash On 2/9/09, Great Quail wrote: > > Quail in turn seems to believe I am some quintessential geek-cred-grubbing > > faux-iconoclast who values the musically obscure just for its obscurity > > Oh, heavens no. I think that about Doug Mayo Wells. Errr... (1) I don't think Doug's here anymore, and (2) I know Doug, and that doesn't seem to describe him or his taste very well at all. Plus he's a super-nice guy. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:03:50 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Satan works In strange Ways On 2/9/09, Nectar At Any Cost! wrote: > a large package of CDs looks like a box in in its bulk...not that it > happens to actually have been put in a box> > > if that were true, then you wouldn't call it a "box *set*": you'd just call > it a "box". luckily, it's *not* true; so we're free to call it what it is: > a boxed set. Fiddlesticks. Balderdash. Horse-pucky. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:10:52 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash > Errr... (1) I don't think Doug's here anymore, and (2) I know Doug, > and that doesn't seem to describe him or his taste very well at all. > > Plus he's a super-nice guy. Relax. No, dmw is not here anymore, and yes, he is a super-nice guy. I was just referring to the fact that he generally knows a hell of a lot about obscure indie bands. Man, I kind of hate all of you today. Even Eb. - --Quail PS: You too, Chris Gross. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 21:21:42 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Setting the record straight re: Mr. Johnny Cash >> > Quail in turn seems to believe I am some quintessential geek-cred-grubbing >> > faux-iconoclast who values the musically obscure just for its obscurity >> >> Oh, heavens no. I think that about Doug Mayo Wells. > > Errr... (1) I don't think Doug's here anymore, and (2) I know Doug, > and that doesn't seem to describe him or his taste very well at all. > > Plus he's a super-nice guy. I don't know if Quail will deign to explain himself, so I'll just briefly point out that he was joking re: dmw. - --Chris, skipping Quail-Rex fights since ... well, sometime last year ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:28:35 -0800 From: "Nectar At Any Cost!" Subject: Re: Satan works In strange Ways well, the reason i didn't present an argument is that i've already done so before now. from : >> it's a set of *what*? CDs, right? the set of CDs, housed inside of the box, is, quite clearly, "boxed". thus, "boxed set". now, if the box were *composed* of the set of CDs (which would be kind of interesting!), you could rightfully call it a "box set". << also, it's not as though *you'd* presented an argument. oh, i forgot to respond to... <(and many such box sets are not, in fact, in anything that reasonably could be called a "box" literally)> if true (would be interested in seeing some examples; and/or in hearing what else the container would be called, if not a "box"), how does this advance the argument that it should be called a "box set"? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:59:00 -0500 From: Great Quail Subject: In defense of Rick Rubin Rex writes, > I must have done. Like you did with my supposed hip-hop aversion, and > probably for the same reason: it fits with my totally imagined idea of your > personality. I am sorry about that, and stand corrected. I thought you once said that you didn't like hip hop, and you rarely speak about it. Liking, or not liking, hip hop has nothing to do with any perceptions I may or may not have about your personality. I was simply mistaken. > For my money, Rubin was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to > spearhead the early hip-hop stuff, Well, Chuck D gives him a lot of credit, and he did get Def Jam started, and was instrumental in the success of countless early hip hop artists, from LL Cool J to the Beastie Boys. I am not sure how simply being "in the right place at the right time" and "lucky" can really account for that. I mean -- obviously he had talent, connections, ideas, creativity, ambition, drive, etc. > and his subsequent career suggests a > tone-deaf opportunist. That seems surprisingly uncharitable. I am not saying that Rubin never falters or acts according to the interests of his wallet, but he has a hell of a resume. > Most of the performances on those Cash records are > great, but I think it's down to it usually being just JC and his guitar... I > give Rubin credit for insisting upon that, but some of his song choices > clunk hard upon my ears. "Some" out of, what, a few hundred? Bear in mind, Cash's career wasn't exactly on an upswing. It's not like Rubin just plunked down a tape recorder and took the credit -- Rubin formed a relationship, a friendship with Cash that re-energized him; Rubin helped introduce him to a world of new music; he understood what the "essential Cash" was better than anyone around him; and he was savvy enough to know how to market Cash in a way that hadn't been done before. That's one hell of a producer. > Rubin's metal credentials don't impress me much; Slayer doesn't impress you? I suppose that's just a matter of taste. If *I* had signed Slayer, lord knows, I'd still be coasting on my fame, walking into every biker bar I see and demanding hand-jobs from death metal floozies. > PE's really down to Bomb Squad. According to one interview with Chuck D, without Rick Rubin's influence, he wouldn't have taken the step to form Public Enemy. And yeah, the Bomb Squad was amazing, but again, to remove Rick Rubin and/or Russell Simmons from the mix, well, why disparage any reactant in the crucible of such alchemical magic? > Erm... well, "genre-fixated" means "fixated upon genre", in your case > without any particular reason other than self-identification as some kind of > authority (see "self-obsessed"). I'm still not clear what you mean. Really. I love music, Rex, I have thousands of CDs, and even more MP3s. I see maybe 50-60 concerts a year, from bar bands to operas. I mean, I joke about having the best musical taste on the list, whatever -- but I don't understand why you think I have no "reason" to "fixate" on a genre other than "self-identification" as an "authority." Believe it or not, I actually *like* obscure Nurse With Wound albums just as much as I like Siegfried Jerusalem's Wagner oeuvre just as much as I like Soft Boys bootlegs. I will add, however, as a balance to this laudably fantastic level of musical awesomeness, that I know nothing about food. I have the culinary sophistication of a thirteen-year old. My favorite place to eat is a bowling alley. When I say that I like Taco Bell, I mean I like Taco Bell the way some people like filet mignon. > "Tokenistic-messianic" means that you > champion music (etc.) not so much for its own virtues as to posit what a > well-rounded, open-minded, authoritative and otherwise somehow virtuous > analyst of art you are (that'd be the tokenistic part), Ah, I see. I am sorry you think so. I can assure you, I have never "championed" a band on account of my self-image. I do, however, have little tolerance for narrow-minded and categorical dismissals such as "modern music," or "pop," or "rap," or what have you. So when I hear that kind of thing, this being a public list designed to discuss music, well -- I tend to leap in. I will say this -- I would never seriously say that someone should be embarrassed for liking something, or that I cannot understand how one can like X and also Z. As Brother Walt writes, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." Except Coldplay. You really should be embarrassed if you are on a Robyn Hitchcock list and own a Coldplay album. Yes -- even a pirated one you burned from your girlfriend's brother. > and that you do so > in overblown, florid, evangelistic terms, "Brother Quail". Because some groups -- like Rush and U2 -- are so amazing, I cannot simply stand by while their good names are dragged through the profanity of Internet mud. If the Chosen do not show the Unbelievers the True Light, how will they get into Musical Heaven? > Yeah, I'm aware > that it's meant to read as a self-deprecating joke, Self-deprecating? You misunderstand me. I *know* that Geddy Lee is a better bass player than Jesus. I am not being self-deprecating; I truly believe that you are wrong, and I pray that one day the scales shall fall from your eyes. > but the joke wouldn't be > there to be made unless it had some underpinnings of truth... just like the > self-effacing comments anyone, not least of all myself, might make. Well, you may rest easy, because I for one never believe that you're actually self-effacing. - --Quail ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V17 #39 *******************************